Facebook to open office near Harvard

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Facebook confirmed Thursday that it is opening a Boston-area office just a couple of miles from where the website was founded in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard University dorm room.

The announcement came almost a year and a half after a top Massachusetts politician asked the social-media giant to relocate to the state where the seeds of the company were first sown. Facebook’s headquarters is in Menlo Park, Calif.

The team, which will be in Cambridge, the town just outside Boston where Harvard is located, will focus on infrastructure projects in areas including storage, networking, security and language runtimes.

“The tech community here is world class, from the incredible academic institutions to the vibrant startup ecosystem to the bevy of global companies who have teams here,” said Ryan Mack, who will lead the office. “We are thrilled to have found a new home here and hope we can help the community continue to thrive.”

Mack is an infrastructure engineer who played key roles in the development of Facebook’s Timeline and Photos projects.

Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo welcomed the news.

DeLeo, a Democrat from Winthrop, outside Boston, wrote an open letter to Zuckerberg in May 2012, asking him to return to Massachusetts, citing the state’s tech-friendly business environment and financial health. DeLeo said he did not know how many people would be working in the Cambridge office. Facebook has about 1.2 billion users worldwide.